SOL
Diameter - 1,392,000 km
Mass - 2 x 10(30) kg
Sol system mass percentage - 99.86%
Stellar classification - G2V
Surface temperature (approx.) - 5,778 K (5,505 C; 9,941 F)
Ring system - Planetoid and debris
References -
http://www.spacestationinfo.com/images/sun.gif
http://theabysmal.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/sunflame_soho_big.jpg
http://www.sunorbit.net/picts/Sun_gr.jpg
Done -
Polygonal sphere
PArray surface emissions
Basic textures, procedural noise materials for surface
Basic textures, radial gradient for surface emissions
Intermediate textures, procedural noise materials for sun spots
Glows: Exterior, interior, highlight, dark hue and particle
To do -
Particle based animated solar flares at particular / random surface points
Glows for flares (to be balanced with glows for sun)
Evolving / animated sun spot texture
Texture map for surface emissions (replacing current radial gradient map)
Animated differential rotation (polar rotation 33.5 days, equatorial rotation 25.6 days)
Things to consider (answers if you've got them ladies and gents) -
Current scale 1:1,000,000 how can I approach 1:1 for simulation purposes?
Software - 3D Studio Max 2010
Renderer - Scanline
Lighting - Basic ambient, self-illumination and traslucency materials, lens glows
Posts
I have no idea, but I know that Steve Rivers (Stevie_D) was trying to do something ambitious like this, and he found some troubles in the way. Just drop him a pm.
The sun is looking excellent!
Starship - Thanks for the info, I've composed and sent a PM hopefully it won't be as difficult as I think it's going to be!
Nice looking sun by the way
Make your dark spots a little redder, your hotspots a little whiter, and you've pretty much got what can be seen in the picture Armondikov posted.
As for the turbulence and flares thing, pete draper used to have an article about a pflow sun thing with spectacular flares on his site (www.xenomorphic.co.uk) but the links for the articles seem broken
I think it's covered in more detail in one of his "deconstructing the elements" editions though, I can check the one I have when I get home.
As for modelling the whole solar system, not in one file by the look of it as the maximum distance my Earth could be away from the sun is 100 million kilometers, some 49 million short of where it should be (on average) which makes the asteroid and kuiper belt impossible to even block out, however a planet in its' own file should pose no problem whatsoever.
I'll create a scaled down graphic map for the system including all named moons with attached information for easy reference and to keep track of the project.
Thanks, it's looking okay at the moment, more to do as always. I think you're absolutley right about the redness of the dark spots and I'm going to make the white spots a little bigger too, a lot of sun images seem to have a great deal of surface activity around or near the equator so it seems apt to mirror that.
I haven't been to www.xenomorphic.co.uk for years, I think I may even have read the sun tutorial at some point, the thumbnails look familiar. Anyone know of any mirrors for tutorials?
Checking your copy would be most appreciated, thanks. I've checked up the books on Amazon, I'll have to get a copy of one.
I have never personally messed around with things that huge, biggest I ever tried was a box the size of the ISS against an earth sized sphere.
What exactly happens when you try to set the position to something greater than 100.000.000 units from the origin?
Also, have you tried messing with the system unit setup some more? I think if you set those to kilometers as well, and wiggle the "distance from origin" slider, you can sacrifice decimal precision for larger numbers. At least that's what I think this might do
Hmm, playing with that a bit there still seems to be a hard limit of 100.000.000, all this accomplished was that I can only move objects in intervals of thousands of km.
One question: What does "squiffy" mean? I love colloquialisms.